Young teenage girls often feel the need to play down how intelligent they are so that they do not intimidate their male peers, a new study suggests.

Meanwhile young teenage boys believe that girls should be less intelligent than them.

The research was carried out by sociologist, Dr Maria do Mar Pereira of the University of Warwick in the UK, who spent three months with a class of children aged around 14.

In order to get as much insight as possible, Dr Pereira participated in every aspect of the school day. This included attending classes, taking exams, taking part in PE, eating lunch with students and going with them to shopping centres after school.

Dr Pereira found that girls often felt the need to ‘dumb down' their intelligence when they were around the opposite sex.

She pointed out that there are ‘very strong pressures in society that dictate what is a proper man and a proper woman'.

"Young people try to adapt their behaviour according to these pressures to fit into society. One of the pressures is that young men must be more dominant - cleverer, stronger, taller, funnier - than young women, and that being in a relationship with a woman who is more intelligent will undermine their masculinity," she noted.

However, she said based on her experiences with the teenagers, ‘our ideas of what constitutes a real man or women are not natural'.

"They are restrictive norms that are harmful to children of both genders. The belief that men have to be dominant over women makes boys feel constantly anxious and under pressure to prove their power - namely by fighting, drinking, sexually harassing, refusing to ask for help, and repressing their emotions," she said.

At the same time, girls feel they must ‘downplay their own abilities' by, for example, ‘pretending to be less intelligent than they actually are, not speaking out against harassment, and withdrawing from hobbies, sports and activities that might seem unfeminine'.

Dr Pereira emphasised that these ‘unreal ideas of masculinity and femininity' are difficult if not impossible to live up to and they can lead to a range of other problems, such as low self-esteem, a loss of potential and bullying.

"We must promote ideas about gender which are less rigid, and recognise there are many ways of being a man and a woman," she insisted.

While the study was carried out with school children living in Portugal, Dr Pereira added that the conclusions ‘strongly apply to young people in other Western countries'.